Katie Boulter: British tennis player reveals social media abuse she has received

Boulter believes a lot of the abuse she is sent is from people who have placed bets on her matches, given it comes after victories as well as defeats.

She says she has become better at moving on from it, or simply not looking at her direct messages, but the impact is clear.

“As far as death threats, it’s just not something you want to be reading straight after an emotional loss,” she says.

“A lot of the time you get it after you win as well.”

Statistics shared exclusively with BBC Sport demonstrate the level of abuse aimed at players through social media, and what is being done to try to address it.

The figures – provided by data science firm Signify, the International Tennis Federation (ITF) and Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) – show that in 2024, about 8,000 abusive, violent or threatening messages were sent publicly to 458 tennis players through their social media accounts.

A significant proportion of abuse stems from betting, according to Signify, which has been working with tennis authorities on detecting abuse through an artificial intelligence-led detection system called Threat Matrix.

More than a quarter of all abuse (26%) was targeted at five players.

The most prolific account sent 263 abusive messages, and 15 accounts were escalated to law enforcement.

Nine of the 10 most prolific accounts – the majority of which were related to angry gamblers – were either suspended or had content removed.

Details of 39 account holders were shared with the tennis authorities and betting industry for further action.

Across the year, angry gamblers sent 40% of all detected abuse, with messages clearly related to betting activity because of the timing or content of the abuse.

Asked for a response, a Betting and Gaming Council spokesperson said its members “do not tolerate abuse on social media, which has no place in betting or sport”.

It added: “It is vital social media companies take swift action against users, and remove offensive content.”

Meta, which owns Instagram and Facebook, declined to provide a comment on the record but has developed various tools to try to prevent people from seeing abuse – including hiding and filtering offensive or unwanted comments or images and technology that tracks and removes abuse.